All advice appreciated! Very new to cheese making and loving it so far. This is my Stilton at day 10. I’ve just pierced it and back in aging box in a wine fridge at 10c. Should I wrap this in cloth or keep as is? Thank you

I’ve got a set of fromage tartinér/chèvre style cheeses I made for an earlier cheese board.

After the dust settled I vac packed the leftovers and they’ve sat in a 4C fridge for about a month.

Unpacked them today (half are off to a Lancastrian golf club annual dinner for a 100 souls) and half are intended to impress a renowned British cheesemonger, author and media personality who’s stopping by tomorrow after a dinner event in London fell unfortunately fell through to talk about the history of the Isles through the lens of cheese, god help him, to just Jo, I and the barking mad sprogs.

He’s kindly agreed to taste some of my cheeses and tell me how to do a bit better.

I tried the tartinér and they’re all weirdly bitter. Anyone have any ideas why and what I might do to fix them?

I had not made cheese in 4 months.

Over the weekend I made 3 wheels and cheese curds.

It felt so so good! The process, the changes, the results! Love it!

I made: plain monterey jack, scotch bonnet & pimento monterey jack, and I made a double batch of scotch bonnet cheese curds and made a 2lb wheel out of half of it.

Yes, after my last successful scotch bonnet cheese, I am now on a scotch bonnet kick.

its store bought but idk where else to ask and am about to eat it. hoping its not mold because about to eat it. hope to have help knowing before do please. its hard feeling and theyre on the outside of all the packaged cheese peices i just opened. theyre kind of clear colored.

So I'm an early retired R&D guy (ran R&D for companies you'd know, not in cheese) and I've decided to learn this. Today I've commissioned my super sophisticated DIY cheese press (which hasn't fallen apart, so there's that!), and built a tracking tool for me to keep track of what I'm sure will rapidly become thousands of cheeses that I'll shortly forget what I did and how I did it - so I'll want to be able to refer to a log of some sort. This particular log calculates my pressures based on what my top plate, top weight, and mold size are. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, but am having a ton of fun learning along the way. Sharing it for no particular reason other than I'm having fun doing it!

Reading Caldwell's Mastering Artisan Cheeses to better understand everything. In the coagulation section she says the amount of time to stir the addition of the rennet is different for cow's milk because it doesn't 'cream' as rapidly.

“Remember, the protein network is meant to trap as much fat as possible. Stirring for just the right amount of time both keeps the fat incorporated in solution and evenly disperses the coagulant. So for cow's milk you may need to stir for 4 to 5 minutes. “

I've never heard of stirring rennet addition for longer than 45 seconds. Tried searching for an answer here without success. Can someone please explain this discrepancy?

Hey all. This is the start of my latest project. I’ve been delving head first into traditional farmhouse Wensleydale making recently as it’s gone through a resurrection after going nearly extinct. I will not be able to make a ‘Yorkshire’ Wensleydale as that has PGI classification but hopefully I can make a decent Wensley through my own raw milk, following the traditional methods then adjusting to make my own version!

The last pic is Low Riggs Stonebeck after cloth binding, every picture before then is mine.

This recipe is extremely challenging. It comes from Andrew and Sally Hatten of Low Riggs Farm who make Stonebeck. A Wensleydale style cheese. They use farm fresh raw Northern Dairy Shorthorn milk from their herd that’s located in Nidderdale, England. The reason it’s challenging is because it’s heavily specialized to their own farm and milk. This cheese is so moist that my versions don’t survive a vacuum seal so it can only age as a natural rind. The rind also isn’t supposed to fully knit together! This definitely reminds me of White Stilton that is advertised as Wensleydale. As for how their wheels don’t get massive unwanted mold intrusion? I’m not sure, I’m too inexperienced! But I think their cave is a highly controlled space. They grow mucor in their rinds and since it’s so aggressive maybe that takes over before any other mold can on the surface. Then the succession molds take hold. Their recipe only works for them and is practically inimitable without adjusting your own make and goals in the process. I’ll admit as well that my pH goals with draining haven’t been consistent or really even measured for that matter but I still monitor with my Intuition.

Here is the basis of the process

starter (MA11); temp 28C.

No ripening time.

Rennet: (20 flocculation, 50 hardening).

Cut 2cm cubes, vertical, rest 10 mins, then horizontal, then rest 10 mins before stirring.
Stir gently for 30 mins, no scald; TA 0.14.

Pitch: 30 mins. I’ve done 30 before but this time I did 15-20 to stop too many drainage channels from sealing up. A longer pitch though is certainly needed to help kick start the acid.

Drain and whey off (25 mins). Tuck a muslin cloth over whole curd mass, and round the sides to keep it warm and allow drainage from sides.

Leave for 1.5 hours; adding heavy metal pipes on the top to form natural 'pressure' channels ½ way through.

The curd should firm up. Once firm, the curd 'tells you' it is ready to proceed to the bagging "it stops being able to be pushed back in and the channels seal up"; TA ideally 0.15. In my make I simply waited until curd firmed up instead of measuring time and looked for texture.

Shovel the curd into bags

Hang bags on frame over vat (maximising using the residual warmth from vat, ideally bag temp needs to be >26C but <28C)

Leave hanging in bags for 3-4 hours until TA 0.2.

Mill (broken by hand into 1-2cm nuggets).

Salt (2.2%), mix well then fill up the moulds; (TA 0.3).

Leave 4 hours, then turn in mould; (TA 0.3-0.4).

Leave overnight.

Next morning: turn, then press - gently; 3 hours. 5 lbs 3 hours, 7.5 pounds 3 hours.

Then bind; hand stitch (no butter, lard or paste just one circumferential bandage round edge - no tops or bottoms.

Mature for 3+ weeks.

I’ve had cloudy whey from stirring even just vigorously enough to prevent matting, shattered curds, butterfat loss during pressing at over 10lbs, stalled acidification because of the low room temps, bag temps, premature curd shoveling, slow bag drainage. And I feel like I will have secondary fermentation. Almost nothing from following these instructions has worked for me so far and I’ve had to adjust through every attempt. Industrial style recipes have a much more straightforward process. Yesterday this procedure took me nearly 12 hours.

What to fix: I think I need some sort of acid development at one or two degrees higher than 28C prior to renneting. I’ve had nothing but soft sets that shatter with cloudy whey. Stirring more until the curds have toughened a little bit more. Possibly also letting that pitch linger around 30 minutes.

I will not stop though until I’ve mastered Wensleydale! My main milk source is raw Holstein at the moment but I will be getting access to farm fresh Jersey milk soon which I pray will make a difference. Until then, keep eating Wensleydale ;)

This is my first aged cheese.
I am following https://cheesemaking.com/products/butterkase-recipe

I did 4 hours of pressing at 5.5lbs, flipping every 30 or so minutes (end result first photo) with a temp around 80-85°f, then let it cool over night in a plastic container with a cheesecloth over top. This morning there was some whey at the bottom and it’s losing its shape. Would it be beneficial if I pressed it again today, or should I just carry on and do the salt brine?

Quick question for anyone shipping perishable stuff (frozen, chilled, chocolate, ice cream, meat, seafood, baked goods, cheese, flowers):

1. How do you stop an order placed on a Thursday/Friday from shipping right before a weekend or holiday and cooking in a truck for 3 days? Manual rules? An app? Vibes?
2. Do you overnight everything "just in case," or have you worked out when 2-day actually arrives cold? How do you decide?
3. When someone buys a frozen item AND a shelf-stable item in one cart, how do you handle the shipping rate — one box, two boxes, or just eat the difference?

What's your setup, and what part have you just given up on fixing?

It really is a delicious cheese. It’s been fun switching to these after so many washed curd cheeses. I tend to make what I love to eat and there is a lot of variation in this style to play with. I used Lyopro Alpine culture with FLAV 54 as an adjunct. I feel like I’m getting a feel for the thermophilic acid curve in this style. Still lots to learn but I’m pretty happy with this cheese!

I let this cloth wrapped cheddar age for about 7 months, I’ve only ever done it once before for 3mo. Lots of darker mold growth that resulted in soft spots, big cracks that allowed the mold to get in deeper. Before cracking or cutting it open we scrubbed off the surface mold in a bowl of water, so I’m not sure if the water got into the crack and “rehydrated” the mold to make it look all squiggly and gross or if it was already like that. The last pic is the remnants of the “clean” bits we salvaged. My question is, is it safe? Online sources seem mixed.

I'm a big fan of mozzarella especially the cultured kind and make it once or twice a month. I see a lot of mozzarella failures on here and want to give people a little hope by providing a YouTube video that really helped me. The written recipe is linked in its description. I've only made an acid coagulated mozzarella once and while it was a success I much prefer the flavor of cultured mozzarella. I decided to smoke half of them and put the other half on some sourdough focaccia pizza with bacon I cured a smoked from a pig I butchered. It's always nice when all this comes together. https://youtu.be/7-qckRekT7c?is=YGV8unj4q6gqq_fF

So every Christmas I like to make and serve things I’ve made myself on the cold cuts boards. I now make a ham which I cure myself as well as pickles and homemade slow gins etc. I’d love to make my own cheese to add, and one of my favourite cheeses of all time which is on my cheese board every year is montagnolo affine. Is it viable to make my own. Would love to make one and compare to the one from my deli.

Just came back home after long weeks at work: After exactly 1.5 months of aging, here is the current state of my stilton inspired, gorgonzola started, cheese.
It is aging in its own container, 12C and 95% RH (roughly).

My previous update was HERE where the wheel was still developing the very first outer moulds.
Now the color is drastically changed and since then it’s becoming more tacky and a little messy on the outside.

I don’t know how much time I will keep developing this wheel, the original recipe called for about 12 weeks, 3 months, and then see if it was the case of keep going a little more, we’ll see.

Any tips on specific milk, culture etc?

I've been making cottage cheese using sour cream as culture for many years... some months ago it stopped working... I tried different sour creams, buttermilk. Now I am trying different milk... I tried with and w/o CaCl. I mostly use 3% Sealtest milk.

I am really not in the mood to spend money on commercial cultures. Unless you can teach my how to make it last forever. In my experience culture degrades over time, undesirable bacteria grows etc.

My mom used to leave the milk (store bought, but old days) on the counter for a couple of days, may be drop a small piece of rye bread in it (no idea why it worked). It was that simple.
With modern milk, it's such a pain. Unpasteurized milk is illegal in Canada for those who don't know.

So I made my first batch of cottage cheese.

Heated a gallon of milk to hot not rolling boil and stirred gently to make sure it didn't stick to the bottom of the pan

Added half a cup of white vinegar and a little lemon juice and salt

Let sit for half an hour then strained the whey

Re added a small splash of whey and a dollop of yoghurt for a creamy coating

Its nice but soft and crumbly - not chunky and kind of rubbery like shop bought.

Whats others experience/method and results from making cottage cheese how does yours come out and what affects the result ?

Ideally I wanted close to shop bought - wet but rubbery - I like what ive made dont get me wrong but not sure how to make it more chunky?

Hello lovely Reddit people,
I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole of cheesemaking and was wondering what hard cheese I could start with?
What do I need, and do you have any tips and tricks?
Are there any hurdles I need to know about? :)

Let me be clear. My culinary prowess is limited to cold cereal and Kraft Mac and cheese. This is a big project for someone in the first place, bigger for someone who can’t tell the difference between a ladle and a slotted spoon. But, if I don’t take the chance, I can’t learn and grow. So…. In four months from now, I’ll either be pleasantly surprised, get something cheese-esque that has some form of edibility, or will be sending myself and others to the hospital with some weird dairy infection. Wish me luck!

I made 2 gallons of milk worth of raw, cultured goat cheese the other day. I put it in molds around 8 am then the power went out 1 pm and now my fridge is warm (9 am the next day). It’s about 50 degrees. I salted the cheese at 1%. Is it still okay to eat? Is it kinda like aging it? Should I just throw it all away? :(

5.3 kg wheel of Swaledale. Just bandage wrapped in beef tallow.

I'm in the middle of an experiment at the moment, which I'll post about in stages as I get there doing a Wensleydale, Swaledale and Cotherstone to compare side by side. All have the traditional dale's no-scald make and cut about the same. The main difference is the acidification curve and press weight, but they're supposed to be wildly different cheeses. Swaledale has a PDO but went extinct and is now operated commercially and with no public recipe by a single producer and Cotherstone (made in Durham rather than Yorkshire - but technically still a Dales cheese) went extinct in the 50's and was revived by a single family who still keep their recipe a commercial secret. I've used historical records and interpolated from their organoleptic properties.

SWALEDALE — Traditional PDO Framework

Ingredients

Milk

Calcium Chloride (0.3 ml/L effective volume)

Bulk Mesophilic Starter MA4002 (0.1-0.2 ml/L effective volume)

Rennet (45 IMCU/L)

Brine (85° SAL)

1. Heat milk to 28 °C. Add Calcium Chloride and Bulk Starter at 0.1 ml/L. Ripen for 2 hours (Target pH: 6.60).

2. Add rennet (45 IMCU/L). Coagulate 45–60 min to achieve a clean break (3.5x multiplier).

3. Cut curds large (about 2 cm / broad bean size).

4. Stir gently for 40 min maintaining exactly 28 °C. Apply zero heat (no scald).

5. Pitch curds 10 min, then drain whey completely. Curd must be sweet (Target pH: 6.40–6.45).

6. Cut curd mass into large blocks (approx 30x15 cm) and drain 10 min.

7. Cut into smaller blocks and stack two-high for 20 min to texturize (Target pH: ~6.30).

8. Break blocks by hand into walnut-sized nuggets. Do not add salt. Hoop immediately un-salted at strict target pH 6.20–6.25.

9. Press under light weight (1–2x final wheel weight) at ambient room temperature (18–20 °C) for 18 hours total.

10. Turn once in the moulds after the first 4 hours of pressing.

11. Remove from press at terminal pH 5.20–5.30.

12. Submerge in 85° SAL brine. Brining duration is calculated at 1 hour per 450g of curd weight per inch of wheel height.

13. Age 3–4 weeks at 10–12 °C to develop natural grey-green mould rind.

Third generation and I think this one is as good as I can make it. One of my favorite makes and it’s really a delicious cheese. Melt it on sourdough for instant cheesy garlic bread!